127 



LARGE COPPER. 



PLATE LIV. 



Lycana dispar, Cuktis. Duncan, Wood. Swainson. 



Tapilio dispar, Hawoetti. Kihby and Spence, 



Papilio mppotlwe, Lewin. Donovan. 



" " var. EsPEH. 



Polyommatiis dispar, Boisduval. 



Chrysophanus dispar, Westwood. 



Long the tenant of the watery wastes which formed the 

 fen districts of Cambridgeshire and the adjoining counties, this 

 fine insect has at last disappeared from Avhat was for ages its 

 secure fastness and its safe stronghold. The industry of man 

 has stopped the '^Meeting of the waters," or rather the very 

 waters themselves have been employed against themselves, and, 

 condensed in the steam-engine, have driven all before them, 

 as if with the force of the rising tide of the ocean. Science, 

 with one of her many triumphs, has here truly achieved a 

 mighty and a valuable victory, and the land that was once 

 productive only of fever and of ague, now scarce yields to 

 any in broad England in the weight of its golden harvest. 

 Time was, and even abundantly within our own recollection, 

 when it might have been considered a beneficial improvement 

 to introduce a stream of water where none before existed, or 

 to deepen it where it did into a navigable canal, and the 

 engineer who successfully completed the work might well say 

 with a laudable satisfaction — 



"Impellitque rates ubi duxit aratra colonus;" 



but now the converse is the just subject of boast, and even 

 over the loose surface of the most treacherous morass, the 

 iron way conveys with speed and safety, and to any extent. 



